Help with choosing a laptop!

[BengaliPagol]

Technology is destroying our lives.

[mufi_02]

Originally Posted by ammark
A laptop for gaming is generally not a great idea. But I am personally biased towards the HP G6 series that sum1 mentioned a few posts up. I am using a G6-2103AX that came out Summer 2012, it has the AMD Fusion APU (CPU+GPU in one) and an additional discrete Radeon HD 7670M chip with 1 GB dedicated memory. Handles older games very well, and great when connected to my big screen TV and showing 1080p 3D Video, or just playing FSX. The HDMI signal is really clean (no signal loss) from this laptop, compared to my previous laptop with AMD Radeon HD 4250 that tends to do some clipping. The G6 cost me less than $500.

sum1's G6-2313AX has even better specs, the Quad Core A10 Apu at 2.3 GHz is gonna be awesome.

caveat: AMD cpus tend to run at a higher temperature so the fan runs a lot and it gets noisy. But the G6's are good value for everyday computing.

Frankly I dont think I'll ever buy another laptop ever again, this is probably the end of the generation. Next one will probably be a surface pro type tablet with a dock and a removable SSD. The only utility I get additionally from laptops/PCs is MS Office and that I can play the only 2 games that I ever play.... plus a little Photoshopping once in a while and some windows only programs that I occasionally need once in a while. That said I dont have any tablets because I can do everything I want or need on my PCs. A tablet is pretty superfluous when I have an iphone and wifey has a Galaxy Note II android phablet.

Thanks for the all these info. But HP G6-2313AX is not in sale in US. Its only available in some Indian sites and so I think it was released only for Asian markets.

You are right as laptops are not great for gaming. But I am looking to play old games (age of empires, other strategy games) on laptop so average specs will be able to handle that.

So far the confusion is, Intel i5 vs AMD , Intel Graphics Card performance.

[sum_1]

Originally Posted by mufi_02
Thanks for the all these info. But HP G6-2313AX is not in sale in US. Its only available in some Indian sites and so I think it was released only for Asian markets.

You are right as laptops are not great for gaming. But I am looking to play old games (age of empires, other strategy games) on laptop so average specs will be able to handle that.

So far the confusion is, Intel i5 vs AMD , Intel Graphics Card performance.

I agree with ammark. Gaming laptops tend to have some common drawbacks like battery backup, overheating, and being slightly on the heavier side. Unless you're into heavy gaming, its not always a good option to buy one. I never really used my laptop for heavy gaming (my desktop provides a much better experience in that even with less processing power and memory).

You mentioned age of empires. I had played aoe 3 on my old pentium core 2 duo laptop and it ran pretty smoothly as far as I can remember. So I believe even a ci3 laptop with a 4 GB RAM will be sufficient for that.

Regarding the graphics card performance, I think AMD (with dedicated radeon graphics) holds the advantage over Intel. But then again this advantage will only be clear in some 'special' cases and would not matter that much to an average user. In my case I went for AMD because it was priced lower than it's Ci5 counterparts with same configuration.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by mufi_02
You are right as laptops are not great for gaming. But I am looking to play old games (age of empires, other strategy games) on laptop so average specs will be able to handle that.

So far the confusion is, Intel i5 vs AMD , Intel Graphics Card performance.

I play RON, AOE2 and FlightSim X... of them FSX does the most graphics rendering (also its a crazy mofo of a CPU hog). AMD is good for this because you can customise gaming profiles and set the hardware requirements really well through their catalyst suite. This is strictly my opinion but AMD is better value package for the price. Now a core i5 will always be a more powerful processor, but I'd rather take a laptop with a discrete graphics card from NVidia or AMD for the cheaper price. That said for RON and AOE, an Intel HD 4000 will be fine. And you can hackintosh an Intel laptop but not an AMD one.

If you're brand neutral you may consider these AMD laptops for their value:

Acer Aspire AMD A8 Quad Core with 500GB HDD and discrete graphics $450

(newegg) Acer Aspire AMD A10 Quad Core with 750GB HDD and discrete graphics $550 & (Amazon) Acer Aspire AMD A10 Quad Core with discrete graphics $550

Lenovo AMD A8 Quad Core with discrete graphics $550

[BD_TigerZ]

I was on a hunt for a gaming laptop till April that offers bang for buck and I was left down to this.

Asus a55aah51
Lenovo g850
Asus k55ads51
Toshiba s855d-s5148
Samsug series 3 np350e7c-a01us

All relatively cheap for what they offer. Bang for buck. Look no further. Id stay away from Sony as their specs are no way worth what you pay for.

[22Yards]

So i have a problem. I was gifted a macbook air by someone living in france. I live in US and the keyboard is a utter mess (Azerty). Do i have any option ?

[Zunaid]

Originally Posted by 22Yards
So i have a problem. I was gifted a macbook air by someone living in france. I live in US and the keyboard is a utter mess (Azerty). Do i have any option ?

Go to system prefs/language and text/input sources and change the keyboard layout to US to have it act like qwerty. Then buy yourself a 20 dollar qwerty overlay and you have gotten rid of the French and gone for Freedom.

[22Yards]

Originally Posted by Zunaid
Go to system prefs/language and text/input sources and change the keyboard layout to US to have it act like qwerty. Then buy yourself a 20 dollar qwerty overlay and you have gotten rid of the French and gone for Freedom.

It would be really nice if you can link me either amazon or ebay for that overlay.

[Zunaid]

Originally Posted by 22Yards
It would be really nice if you can link me either amazon or ebay for that overlay.

Shall I bring the spoon closer?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...keyboard+cover

[22Yards]

Originally Posted by Zunaid
Shall I bring the spoon closer?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...keyboard+cover

Thanks sooo much for spoon feeding doc. Cheers. :p

[Zunaid]

Originally Posted by 22Yards
Thanks sooo much for spoon feeding doc. Cheers. :p

You're welcome. Once a parent, always a parent.

[MohammedC]

Have not been looking outside the box for a looong time, always used Dell. I was thinking about IBM but found out they no longer sell Laptop. Anyone know why ?

[Sohel]

1. For serious entertainment (movies, music and gaming): Macbook Pro, Samsung or Sony. Asus and MSI make excellent gaming laptops.

2. Desktop replacement laptops for serious work (programming, music, graphics & film): Macbook Pro or Dell Precision.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by MohammedC
Have not been looking outside the box for a looong time, always used Dell. I was thinking about IBM but found out they no longer sell Laptop. Anyone know why ?

IBM sold their Personal Computing business to Lenovo in 2006 I think. Since then Lenovo has carried on IBM's laptop and desktop brands. It was all over the news back then, a Chinese company buying up IBM's PC business.

[Zunaid]

Lenovo has generally kept up with the IBM quality. While not sexy, they are solid performers.

[mufi_02]

Originally Posted by ammark
I play RON, AOE2 and FlightSim X... of them FSX does the most graphics rendering (also its a crazy mofo of a CPU hog). AMD is good for this because you can customise gaming profiles and set the hardware requirements really well through their catalyst suite. This is strictly my opinion but AMD is better value package for the price. Now a core i5 will always be a more powerful processor, but I'd rather take a laptop with a discrete graphics card from NVidia or AMD for the cheaper price. That said for RON and AOE, an Intel HD 4000 will be fine. And you can hackintosh an Intel laptop but not an AMD one.

If you're brand neutral you may consider these AMD laptops for their value:

Acer Aspire AMD A8 Quad Core with 500GB HDD and discrete graphics $450

(newegg) Acer Aspire AMD A10 Quad Core with 750GB HDD and discrete graphics $550 & (Amazon) Acer Aspire AMD A10 Quad Core with discrete graphics $550

Lenovo AMD A8 Quad Core with discrete graphics $550

Thanks a lot Ammar bhai. It was very informative.

I will look into AMD processors now. Before I ignored them and looked only at Intel.

[mufi_02]

finally got my laptop. lenovo z580. 15.6", intel i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB, intel HD 4000. The price was reasonable after a huge sale and within my poor budget. special thanks to ammark bhai for those information and it helped while shopping around.

[Maysun]

I bought a Dell Inspiron last week. Still haven't received it yet.

Dell Inspiron 15R
Intel Core i7 - 3.2GHz - 6MB cache
1TB HDD
8GB DDR3
15.6" Full HD
2GB ATI
Win8

There was a sale. So got this. Idk what to do with my Toshiba Satellite. Have used it for 5 years, don't want to part with it. :/

[sum_1]

Originally Posted by Maysun
I bought a Dell Inspiron last week. Still haven't received it yet.

Dell Inspiron 15R
Intel Core i7 - 3.2GHz - 6MB cache
1TB HDD
8GB DDR3
15.6" Full HD
2GB ATI
Win8

There was a sale. So got this. Idk what to do with my Toshiba Satellite. Have used it for 5 years, don't want to part with it. :/

Great

Don't forget to write a brief 'hands on' review for the BCites once you get your hands on it.

[mufi_02]

Originally Posted by Maysun
I bought a Dell Inspiron last week. Still haven't received it yet.

Dell Inspiron 15R
Intel Core i7 - 3.2GHz - 6MB cache
1TB HDD
8GB DDR3
15.6" Full HD
2GB ATI
Win8

There was a sale. So got this. Idk what to do with my Toshiba Satellite. Have used it for 5 years, don't want to part with it. :/

very good specs Maysun. Its much better than mine. 2GB ATI will be great. I saw a sale on Inspirion too but my brother said no unless it was latitude.

but i hate windows 8! worst OS i have ever used. what was microsoft thinking?

[Ajfar]

Can anyone please shed some light on how to run windows on Mac? I have been trying to look for some step by step tutorial videos on youtube, but most of them are quite old, and I see a lot of people leaving comments saying they are having trouble getting it to work. I need to use Abaqus student edition for my class, and I only have access to the windows version. If someone can help me out, I'd really appreciate it.

[Zunaid]

Originally Posted by Ajfar
Can anyone please shed some light on how to run windows on Mac? I have been trying to look for some step by step tutorial videos on youtube, but most of them are quite old, and I see a lot of people leaving comments saying they are having trouble getting it to work. I need to use Abaqus student edition for my class, and I only have access to the windows version. If someone can help me out, I'd really appreciate it.

Use parallels or VMware fusion. They both cost around $50.

http://www.macworld.com/product/1117...desktop-7.html

http://www.macworld.com/product/1120...-fusion-4.html

[Zeeshan]

So basically you have to spend fortune on wifi and ipad would be a paperweight. Might as well take laptop to Dhaka instead of lugging ipad?

[Nasif]

Originally Posted by Ajfar
Can anyone please shed some light on how to run windows on Mac? I have been trying to look for some step by step tutorial videos on youtube, but most of them are quite old, and I see a lot of people leaving comments saying they are having trouble getting it to work. I need to use Abaqus student edition for my class, and I only have access to the windows version. If someone can help me out, I'd really appreciate it.

Oracle's (actually Sun's) VirtualBox is free and works great. It can run either in x86 and x64 mode, ie you can run from XP to Win8 and everything in between.

https://www.virtualbox.org/

[Maysun]

VirtualBox and VMware Workstation.

I keep encountering bugs when using Virtual Box from time to time but I still keep using it.